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The Center for Biomedical Research in Music (CBRM) was established at Colorado State University as an interdisciplinary research and service center for teaching, learning and community therapy outreach in 1994. It is sanctioned by the university as a unit in the interdisciplinary CIOSU (Centers, Institutes, and other Units) division.

Research at CBRM has pioneered internationally many aspects of the clinical neuroscience of music. Breakthrough discoveries did establish the physiological basis and clinical applications of rhythmic auditory-motor connections in motor rehabilitation for persons with stroke, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, and other movement disorders. These findings are now clinically applied all over the world.

CBRM has also been a leader in research studying the role of music in speech and language and cognitive rehabilitation. The development of the field of Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT) was spearheaded by CBRM. NMT training is now endorsed by the World Federation of Neurorehabilitation (WFNR) and the European Federation of Neurorehabilitation Societies (EFNS), the only medically recognized model of music therapy.

In the basic science of music perception, CBRM research was one of the first to use brain imaging to map auditory motor pathways in the brain. Psychophysics research at CBRM made two inroads to new knowledge: first, strategies how the brain synchronizes movement to auditory rhythm – second, how rhythmic time information is processed and regulates timing of movement even below levels of conscious awareness.

CBRM faculty are connected at CSU through academic appointments and collaborative research projects to the Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Neuroscience Program, the PhD program in Occupational and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Center of Aging, and the Departments of Psychology, Health and Exercise Science, and Occupational Therapy. Multiple research collaborations exist between CBRM and Research Centers in the U.S. and abroad.